Page 13 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

“You okay?” A voice he’d worried he’d never hear again yelled in his ear.

Which is when he realized that Gwen still had hold of his arm.

He turned to find her dark hair floating around her in the rough seas like a damned water nymph, the pale gold of her eyes trained on his face. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Are you?” he yelled back over the roar of the water.

Gwen nodded and relief speared through him.

He’d seen her plane long before he’d gotten to her, seen this blasted storm barreling down on top of her. And then the wraith…

Asher had never flown so fucking fast in all his life.

They were stuck in the middle of the ocean, the storm still raging. Who knew where the godsdamned wraith was. His arm burned like a son of bitch, not just from the lightning, but now the added ocean water. Literal salt in his wound.

But Gwen was alive, and so was he.

“I should shift?—”

She shook her head. “I can hide us better at this size.”

Hide? He frowned. Maybe he’d heard her wrong.

But no. She pointed up. “Whatever is controlling this storm has to be working with the wraith. They’re still trying to find us.”

And a giant dragon, even one just floating on the surface, was easier to see. What would they do? Duck underwater if they saw the wraith?

Gwen had always had the uncanny ability to follow his unspoken thoughts better than anyone else, and, for a breath-stealing second, he almost thought she was going to smile at him. But she turned her face away. “Trust me,” she said instead.

Then she swam around him, moving her grip up his arm. He didn’t know what she was going to do until suddenly she wrapped one around his chest from behind, leaving his good arm free. Shock and a very inappropriate shot of lust struck him even harder than the lightning had as she plastered herself along his back.

He’d dreamed of this. Not the storm part, but of her. Of touching her. Of her touching him.

“What are you?—”

“Can you swim like this?” she asked.

Asher came back to earth with a crash. Right. She was in “save them” mode while he was drowning in sudden aching need like an asshole. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Then…nothing. They just floated there like that, their legs tangling a bit as they tread seas that were battering them, equally soaked by the rain.

She’d sounded like she had a plan, but this didn’t seem like a plan.

“Gwen?”

“Just waiting for the right wave.”

He glanced over his shoulder to find her looking behind them. That’s when a massive wave came up and over them. Asher braced, ready to grab her tighter. Only just as the wave should have hit them broadside and tossed them back under the water, she raised her hand and tiny, ember-like sparks of white swirled up and over them, flowing but not violent.

Then the wave stopped.

Dead stopped. It looked strangely like a painting suspended over the top of them, frozen mid-crest, not quite touching on the other side. And not moving. The small circle of ocean they floated in also went still.

And quiet.

The sound of both of their breathing was the only noise in their spot, while the crash and roar of the roiling ocean was muffled outside.